


The Innocents

by universalworst



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Another Episode
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Generally Canon Compliant, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Murder, POV First Person, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-11 13:25:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11715285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/universalworst/pseuds/universalworst
Summary: The world through the eyes of the Warriors of Hope.Each chapter is told from a different child's point of view. Please be warned, any disturbing content or themes from Dangan Ronpa: Another Episode are fair game here.





	1. Incompetent

**Shingetsu Nagisa: Incompetent**

* * *

When I was six years old, my teachers sat down with Father and Mother and told them that I was excelling in all my subjects. They recommended that I be moved up a grade.

Father was thrilled.

And a year later, when we sat down with my teachers again, they told us the same thing.

Father was thrilled again.

I didn’t feel much of anything.

School was a distraction during the day. Adrenaline and amphetamines kept me awake, but the lessons were easy and the teachers were kind. They told me how clever I was. They praised me for being studious and sometimes gave me medals and phony certificates when I would win academic competitions.

I usually threw them in the trash on my way home.

Father told me that only fools gain satisfaction from awards. Then he sent me to my room to study.

I wasn’t a fool, not even when I was seven, so I stopped gaining satisfaction from foolish things.

The next year, I didn’t go back to school.

I don’t remember sleeping after that, but I guess I must have slept sometimes. If I was only running on injections of adrenaline, I would have died.

But I still don’t remember sleeping.

What I remember is a large, bright, halogen bulb glaring down at me from my mounted desk lamp. I remember Mother stepping into the room and tapping packets of powder into my IV a few times a day. I remember Father telling me that this was how adults worked.  
Didn’t I want to be a productive member of society when I grew up?  
Didn’t I?

I didn’t.

And now, here, I know I never will be. I’ll never even have the option, because there is no adult society anymore.

Good riddance.

When I was ten, I was scouted for a prestigious grade school—an affiliate of Hope’s Peak High School.  
I was surprised that Father agreed to let me attend.

I wouldn’t board there, though. No, he moved our family to a modest house near campus so I could come home every night for my “study session”.

I fit in better at this school than I had at my old one. The children here were brighter, stranger, and too preoccupied with their own talents to be judgmental. No one seemed to notice how my hands shook when I tried to focus, or how the bags under my eyes only got worse each day.

No one, except her.

The first day of class, everyone noticed Monaka. She was demure, but friendly, and she sat in a wheelchair. But when someone asked why she couldn’t walk, she got this sad, sad look on her face, like her heart was broken.

She told me what happened to her. Not right away though—she told everyone it was an accident at first, and we all felt sorry for her.

I felt worse when she told me the truth.  
I hated her brother. I still hate her brother.

We didn’t become friends on purpose. Not just Monaka and me—all of us who stayed in the classroom late.  
I certainly didn’t stick around because I wanted company.  
I just didn’t want to go home.

Neither did the others, apparently. Monaka said her father was an important person, but she didn’t like to talk about her life very much. None of us did.  
We didn’t have to, I guess. We all understood what made us similar, after awhile.

Utsugi was all smiles, and I never saw bruises on her like I did on Daimon. And she always said she liked her job as an actress. She would say how popular she was, and how everyone called her pretty.

But she would always be scared when the day came for her to perform. She’d cry and hug Monaka and say she didn’t want to go. She said she wanted to die.

Daimon spent a lot of time playing sports and stuff. He had practice later in the afternoon, when we all went our separate ways, so I guess he didn’t spend much time at home during the school days. On Monday, though, he would be quiet—quieter, I guess. He’s always been a loud-mouth.

He told our after-school club once that he hated his dad. Kemuri asked him why.  
Daimon gave him a bloody nose.

Kemuri boarded at the school. His parents never visited. He didn’t have a reason to stay late with the rest of us, since he didn’t have a home to avoid, but I guess he didn’t have any other friends, and he didn’t like being alone.

We all hated Kemuri.  
I don’t know why.  
Maybe it was just because we were so angry and he was so willing to be our punching bag—sometimes literally.

The first time I saw him without his mask on, the teacher made him take it off to be inspected for head lice. He cried and held his hands in front of his face and apologized for how ugly he was.  
But the thing was, he wasn’t ugly.  
We all knew it, us in the after-school club.  
We all wanted him to be ugly. Sometimes, before we ever saw his face, we would draw what we thought his face looked like.  
Kemuri loved that. He would draw too—or sculpt, or paint, or whatever. He always made himself look like a monster.

But I also feel sorry for him, sometimes.

Maybe that’s because I’m growing up the fastest.  
I think more and more often that Kemuri and Utsugi and Daimon are more sad and hurt than anything else.  
It makes me angry. It makes me angry because the world treated them poorly when they didn’t deserve it. And it makes me angry I can’t see myself in that role, as a sad and hurt child.

I was complicit in my own abuse. I kept studying, even when I saw colorful dots in my peripheral vision; even when my headaches got so bad I thought I would die. I never tried to quit. Father’s goal was to see how far a child could be pushed. So if I had quit, maybe that would have been it, right?

But I didn’t quit…  
I didn’t quit…  
I still can’t quit because I’m too prideful and too stupid to know when I need to stop.

Adults who hurt children deserve to die.  
I don’t care if that sounds extreme.  
I killed my Father and Mother.  
I don’t regret that.  
I don’t…  
I don’t regret it.  
I can’t… because if I do, then will I regret all the others?

They were killing us. They were killing us, so it was self-defense.

I have to be strong. I have to make sure everyone gets home safely at night. I have to make sure Monaka is never alone, so she never gets stuck someplace with no one to help her.

But I mess up. Still, even though I don’t have much to do, I mess up.

Daimon likes to run off alone, and he’s faster than any of us. He goes demon-hunting by himself. He could get killed, but he says he’d never let a demon kill him. He’s too brave for his own good.  
Sometimes Kemuri goes off and hides and we can’t find him for hours. Once I decided we should let him hide as long as he wants and he was missing for three days. When he came back he was weak and dehydrated and he wouldn’t talk for a long time.  
Monaka says she’s not helpless, and sometimes she wants to be by herself. She tries so hard to be nice when she says that, but I…  
…

Utsugi thinks I’m bossy, and since Daimon’s the leader, I can’t tell her what to do. That’s not what I’m trying to do, though. I don’t mean it, but I come off as a jerk. I can’t do anything right. I can’t do anything right.

I can’t do anything right.  
I can’t do anything right.  
I can’t do anything right.  
I can’t do anything right.  
I can’t do anything right.  
I can’t do anything right.  
I can’t do anything right.

I miss Onee-san.  
Everyone smiled when we were with her, and we all meant it too.  
But she died.  
We saw it on the television broadcast.  
She died.

She was the one who told me how bad my parents were. She said real life isn’t how Father said at all.  
And when I sneaked into his office, I saw all the notes.  
He kept notes about my mood, my medicines, my work ethic… He had notes about how amazing it was that I hadn’t had a complete mental breakdown yet.

He was experimenting on me.  
He wasn’t teaching me how to succeed.  
He was studying how long it would take me to fail.  
That was how the project was going to end.  
One way or another, I’d just… break.

I killed him that night. Mom too.

I killed them, and then I cried.


	2. Dirty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't graphic, but it's the Kotoko monologue. The content warnings you would expect apply here.

**Utsugi Kotoko: Dirty**

* * *

I’m a shining star!  
I’m an adorable princess; Japan’s sweetheart!  
As long as I stay cute and flat-chested, they’ll love me forever!

I used to say stuff like that.

But I didn’t always like doing that stuff, ya know? Stage lights get super hot, and whenever I’d get a new costume, Papa would want to take pictures of me in it.

I don’t…  
I didn’t like when he took pictures.

But you know, I’m not just cute. I’m also a talented actress. Everyone says so. Said so, I mean. Most of them are dead now.

The thing is, some people who said they liked my acting were just perverts. You know what men are doing when they put their hand down their pants? I see—I saw those guys in the audience all the time back then. I don’t know who most of them were, but I hope they’re all dead now.

I don’t think any of the boys I know now do that.  
Not yet at least.

If any of them do, I bet it’s Kemuri. He just SMELLS like a pervert.

I bet he thinks about lewd stuff a lot. So I try and stay between him and Monaka-chan, since she wouldn’t be able to run away if he tried anything fishy.

He makes me sick!

But like I said, nothing like that has happened yet. And the day any of the boys does something?  
Snip!

I know that’s kind of extreme, and the boys wouldn’t agree if I told them about it, but it’ll really be for the best.  
It’s to protect Monaka-chan. She’s so innocent. She probably wouldn’t know how to protect herself. It’s so easy to just freeze up.

(Please stop, _please, please,_ I’ll be good, just stop, _just stop_ , why can’t I say anything? Why don’t I scream? It’s dirty, it’s _**dirty**_ , **please don’t!** )

When I would go on stage, back when there were demons everywhere, I always made sure I didn’t look at anybody in the eye. That’s easy, since it’s hard to see anything when the lights are on, but I could still tell when there are men with their hands in their pants. I could just TELL. Then, when stuff happened after the show, I wouldn’t look then either. I didn’t want to see their faces.

Papa sometimes made me look. He’d grab my chin and… stuff…

I just think you shouldn’t look somebody in the eye when you hurt them.

I’d go shower after. I was allowed to take as long as I wanted in the shower, and nobody ever tried to come in.

Oh, and speaking of showers! All the other Warriors stink. They hardly ever bathe.

Masaru-kun says he can do whatever he wants, so he doesn’t have to wash until he gets so dirty, plants start growing on him. But sometimes Nagisa-kun gets him to shower anyway.

Kemuri smells pervy, but he also wears that mask all the time. It’s good because we don’t have to see his hideous face, but just think about how filthy it must be! Sweat and snot and his hair and all that? Sometimes Nagisa-kun makes him wash his face. Not often enough though. Not even close. When I see him without the mask, I always wanna gag. He gets all these blistery things from the mask rubbing his skin, and it’s gross. He’s going to have a lot of acne when he gets older, I bet. Serves him right.

Monaka-chan doesn’t run around, so she doesn’t get as dirty and sweaty as the rest of us. Plus, it’s harder for her to shower, so it’s okay that she doesn’t do it so often.

But me? I shower every single day. Even when the plumbing isn’t working. I use water bottles and rainwater then. Nagisa-kun says it’s wasteful, but I don’t care. On those days, he smells just as bad as the other boys.

(Scrub away all the filth you want but still, _you’ll never be clean._ )

I smell fresh all the time!

I always put my hair up in twin tails, just like Big Sis. She told me that I look like a little fashionista when I do that.

She died, though.  
Now I sort of… feel like I have to keep doing my hair this way forever. Because it’s what she liked, ya know?

Big Sis saved me. She saved all of us. Like a fairy godmother…! She made all our lives better so easily… She made us realize that it isn’t our fault we got all screwed up. Grown-ups did this to us! They’re demons! And she was right…

I’m not dirty. They’re the dirty ones! They should have their eyes gouged out and their wieners cut off! They shouldn’t talk like that! Dad shouldn’t let them do those things! They’re dirty and evil and I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!

They’re dirty! Not me!

They’re bad!

I just wanted to shine…  
I just…

It’s not fair! _It’s not **FAIR!**_

…

I got upset just then.  
I’m fine though.  
They’re gone. All the demons.

…I couldn’t… or, I didn’t look at Papa when I killed him. I just pushed the button.

You shouldn’t look at somebody when they’re in that much pain.


	3. Cowardly

**Daimon Masaru: Cowardly**

* * *

I get mad a lot.  
Not all the time or anything.  
But sometimes I just get so mad I wanna hit something.

Sometimes I hit some _one_.

This is sort of a secret, but… I feel really guilty when I do that.  
Kemuri’s weaker than me and he doesn’t fight back. It’s as bad as hitting a girl, basically.  
People who hit people who they know won’t fight back are the worst. So usually I hit myself later, just so it’s fair.

Like that guy from Onee-chan’s game. The guy with the big hair. Oowada-san. I hated him from the very start, when he hit Naegi-san. He was, like, twice as big as him!  
Then he did it again, when he killed Fujisaki-san.  
I’m glad that guy died.

I hated that guy.

I hate people who hit people who are weaker than them.

It makes me mad. It makes me mad, and I wanna hit something, and then it starts all over again!

I used to love Dad more than anything. I didn’t hate him for hitting me. Sometimes he was nice, you know? But he started drinking more and more and he was nice less and less and he became a worse and worse person.

He was so big.  
What was I supposed to do?

I couldn’t fight him. He’d just hit me harder, I think. I dunno… I never tried.

Should I have tried?

Gah! Thinking about that stuff makes my chest and belly feel like they’re on fire!

I’ve thought about maybe hitting Shingetsu-kun next time. He’s tougher than Kemuri. Or at least, he won’t take it lying down.  
But I could see Shingetsu’s face if I hit him.  
I don’t want to see the face he’d make.

Kemuri wears that stupid mask all the time. That makes it easier.

It’s best when I can go demon-hunting. I don’t have to feel like a coward then. They’re all so much bigger than me. And I still beat them! Heheheh!

I’m glad we live in a world where kids are in charge. Now, no grown-up can ever hurt one of us again. And if they do, we’ll snipe ‘em or something.

Hmm?  
Oh, I don’t wanna talk about how Dad died.  
He’s dead. Just dead. That’s it. It doesn’t matter how.

It doesn’t matter!

(How can you stand there and say that you love me now that I’m the big one? How can you look at me with those sad eyes, the same eyes that looked at me like I was garbage for all those years? How can you hold your hands out to me like that, like some sort of peace offering? Those are the hands you hit me with… Those hands… Stop! I’ll kill you!)

He looked pathetic, though. Just so you know.  
He looked like a coward.

I dunno much about everyone else’s parents. We don’t really talk about that. We’d all just end up getting upset.

Oh, except Kemuri… He gets upset too, but he’ll talk about his mom sometimes. He’s crazy, I think. He thinks he sees his mom sometimes, when it’s just some lady-demon. So he’ll go berserk and kill her.  
We don’t really care about that. They’re just demons. But he gets himself all worked up and one time he tried to make a sculpture out of her body and it smelled SO BAD.

You know, Kotoko-chan said I smelled just as bad as the sculpture when we were making Kemuri clean it up. She’s a jerk sometimes.  
“Take a bath, stinky!” No thanks!

We all decided that when we get old enough to be demons, we’ll kill ourselves. I don’t mind that. I think it’s for the best.

The only thing scarier than a monster is turning into a monster.

And that’s what I’d end up being, right? If I grew up and had a son?

I’d probably get angry sometimes. So angry I want to hit something.  
Or some _one_.


	4. Forgotten

**Kemuri Jatarou: Forgotten**

* * *

I sleep with my mask on.

Shingetsu-kun says I shouldn’t do that. He says it rubs and gives me scabs and sores. But I don’t listen to Shingetsu-kun.  
I should, but I don’t. Because I’m bad.

I met Mama on the street today, trying to sneak around.  
She was with a little girl.  
She was holding her hand, and the girl called her “mom”.

And then…  
And then, then, then I just remember… stabbing and stabbing and they kept screaming and I had to make them stop and shut up so I wouldn’t get in trouble so I stabbed harder and, and, and, and.

(Why? Why? Why, why, why why why why why why why?! Why did you look at her with so much love? You aren’t supposed to be capable of that!)

I got in trouble anyway.

Daimon-kun found the mushy stuff left over in the alley and since I was all bloody, he figured it out.

He was angry because I killed a child.

He was angry because I’m bad.

“She wasn’t your Mom, stupid!”  
Monaka-chan told me that while Utsugi-chan and Daimon-kun punished me. I got covered in bruises, but now I’m all repented.

I’m priest-class, you know? I should do penance, sometimes.

Shingetsu-kun thinks the punishment where I get punched doesn’t work. He says I don’t mind it enough. It works best on Daimon-kun, and pretty good on Utsugi-chan. But not me.

Shingetsu-kun said that next time I'm bad and they need to punish me, they should justignore me for a few days.  
Shingetsu-kun has a vicious side. That’s almost too mean, even for somebody like me.

I should be good from now on, so that doesn’t happen, but— but, but, but, but that isn’t something that I can do.  
I’m bad. Even when all the bad stuff I do gets washed away, I’m still bad underneath.

I’m scared that maybe I’m turning into a demon already.

Sometimes at nighttime, I cry for Mama. I try and be quiet, but sometimes Utsugi-chan starts crying real loudly, and that makes me cry even harder.

It was okay back then. It was okay, when Mama hated me. She told me how much she wished I’d die, and she’d make me eat off the floor like a dog, but it was okay. Because I built my happiness in her hate.

Then she wasn’t home so much. She started working more. Then there were times when she didn’t come home at all.

Papa was gone even more. He went away on business a lot. When I was seven, he went on a business trip that lasted forever.

But I didn’t need Papa to be happy. Mama and her anger and those faces she used to make, and when she’d cry in her bedroom, when I’d sit outside the door and listen.

That was my happiness.

And then it was…

(I don’t care if you kick me or spit on me or call me names as long as you’re there and you’re paying attention to me and we can see each other but now, but now, now you’re gone and the hate is gone too and all that’s left is EMPTINESS and I can’t build a new nest out of nothing, so come home Mama, come home, please!)

....I took my mask off.

I warned Shingetsu-kun about my face. The others all gagged and turned away and fake-puked, but Shingetsu-kun just started dabbing my cheek with rubbing alcohol.

It hurt.

“Stop crying!” Shingetsu-kun shouted. “Just hold still!”

I wanted to be quiet and hold still, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t because I’m so bad.

Daimon-kun took my left arm and Utsugi-chan took the right, and they held me still while Shingetsu-kun washed my face and cleaned my sores.

Then he told me to wash my mask, since it’s all sweaty and full of bacteria, but that would be cruel, because the little germs didn’t ever do anything wrong. They’re not hurting me on purpose, they just want to live happy lives on my face where it’s warm and damp and safe, but then Shingetsu-kun took my mask and started washing it himself and I wanted to cry, but I didn’t.

The first time I killed Mama was after I met Onee-san.

I saw Mama smoking behind the convenience store. I used… uh… I used a screwdriver, I think.

I cried a lot, then. I remember how I was all bloody, and I couldn’t wash it off of my mask, and I just kept scrubbing and scrubbing. I didn’t even care about the little bugs I probably killed when I did that. I just wanted the blood to come off.

Onee-san came and helped me put my mask back on. She hugged me and told me how horrible and ugly I was.

I miss her.

Sometimes I forget if things happened in real life or if they were just dreams. I’ve killed Mama three times now. Seven, if you count the dreams.

I can’t make her hate me though, no matter what I do. She never recognizes me. She never knows who I am.

“Mama,” I tell her every time. “Mama, look.”

And sometimes she doesn’t even do that.

Then I get upset, and the stabbing happens.

But, but, so since I can’t tell what’s a dream and what isn’t, I kept thinking at first that Onee-san was still alive. Even after we watched the broadcast on the big screen. Even after we watched her die on TV. I kept thinking, “Ah, but that might have just been a dream.”

But it never was.

Once I dreamed I was Daimon-kun. I was loud and brave and everyone liked me, and I liked being liked. In that dream, Kemuri Jatarou never existed. Or maybe I just never met him.  
That one, that dream, though? That dream, I never confused it for a real memory.

That was a bad dream.

After Onee-san died, we went to the convenience store and ate so much candy that we didn’t even want candy anymore. I didn’t even know you could do that… make your tummy not want candy. But it happened.  
Daimon-kun even got sick all over the aisle with the crackers and chips.

He kept punching himself after that, all over his arms and stuff. He said it was for punishment, since he did something bad. Utsugi-chan said it wasn’t bad, just stupid, but that only made him get worse.

We all punish ourselves sometimes. All of us besides Monaka-chan. She never does anything bad, so she doesn’t have to.

Daimon-kun and Utsugi-chan hit themselves. Shingetsu-kun pulls his hair and scratches his face and arms. Sometimes he scratches his arms so bad he bleeds.

Usually, I don’t have to punish myself because they notice when I do something bad right away, even before I do. But when it’s really, really bad? Then, I go and hide. The rule is I can’t come out until they start looking for me.

I got this watch, see? I learned a little bit how to keep it working and stuff, since it's one of those digital ones with the numbers and those are easier to fix than the ones with all the teensy tiny gears. And so when I’m punished, I keep track of how much time it takes them to start looking.

Usually it's a few hours.  
One time, I waited two days… I think it was two days?... until I was too thirsty to keep hiding. Utsugi-chan told me they knew I was hiding and it was a stupid game and they didn’t want to play it anymore.

(It's not a game not a game not a game NOT a game— If you think it’s stupid you have to find me and tell me and yell at me and HIT me and say you HATE ME or else how will I know? How will I know you hate me and didn’t just forget?)

Shingetsu-kun hates Mama. And he hates his and Daimon-kun and Utsugi-chan’s dads, and Monaka-chan’s whole family. One time, I asked him, “How come you hate my mom?” And he said… Well, he told me she was a bad person for how she treated me.

That’s a little funny, right?

I said that to him, and, and he asked why it was funny, and I told him it was funny because he should like someone who made me sad, if he hates me.

He said he didn’t think he hated me as much as the others do. It's weird, because when he said that, it kind of made me think he hated me more than anybody.

He said we’re friends, and I told him he’s right, but he’s not supposed to say that. He’s not supposed to think it either. I don’t think he liked that very much, since I’m not supposed to boss him around.

He doesn’t like it when I sleep with my mask on either. But I still do it.

I never listen. Heheheh.  
Because I’m bad.

 


	5. Hopeless

**Touwa Monaka: Hopeless**

* * *

Hate can get so _boring_ sometimes.

When Monaka was six years old, she built her first ever robot out of spare parts left around Haiji’s workbench. She used a remote control and made it clean her room for her. It was two feet tall, and it had two claw hands that could open and close, and it rolled around on little whirring wheels that sometimes got caught on the carpet if it turned too quickly.

She was so proud of her invention! She decided to show it to Papa.

“Papa! Papa! Look!”

He knew it was good. Even when she was just a little girl, Monaka could tell what he was thinking. But he didn’t praise her. Instead, he told her it wasn’t finished yet, and she shouldn’t bother him with toys. Maybe if she worked on it a little more, it would be worth showing off.

What a stinky liar!

Nii-san came into my room later and kicked the robot and laughed when I cried.

Papa and Nii-san always hated me. They didn’t have a good reason, as far as they knew. It’s Papa’s own fault for being a cheating scumbag, and it’s Nii-san’s fault he’s too stupid to keep up with a little girl in robotics. They hated _themselves_ , really. They were just too thick to realize it.

That’s what a psychologist would probably say, fufufu.

But listen:  
Even though Monaka’s story _starts_ a lot like the others’, with an uncaring family and an axe to grind, it’s not _really_ the same at all. Because it’s not _about_ that family or that axe or that grindstone. That’s just the backdrop. It gives a little context.

The others aren’t like Monaka.

Monaka watched all of them today. They were playing in the showers in their underwear, and Nagisa-kun kept trying to get the others to use soap instead of just running around under the shower heads, but eventually he slipped and fell and started chasing Masaru-kun, and soon all four of them were laughing and screaming and spitting water at each other like children.

_What is that like?_

Nagisa-kun and Kotoko-chan and the others all have it lucky. They have _reasons_ to hate so much. They can point their weapons at the thing they hate and destroy it and destroy it and destroy it over and over and over again until they’re too tired to hate and they just cry. All four of them are like that. They kill, then they cry, then they kill, then they cry, and it goes on and on and on…

Monaka can’t put a face on her monster. Monaka can’t destroy it. Monaka has to live with it, because it’s _inside of her_. It’s a poison that goes deep, deep down into the soul. Jatarou-kun likes to think he’s bad at the core, but he’s just making up excuses for why he feels unfulfilled. He’s too stupid to know “bad” when it sits right next to him and tells him he should kill himself.

Maybe if Monaka was born a little different, she could be like the others. Her family was cruel too, and she has all sorts of reasons to resent them. But she doesn’t get hung up on unimportant things like that. My world is bigger than the microcosm of my own personal life.

You see, Monaka-chan has a beef with the whole wide world! Adults, children, it doesn’t matter! She’s a serpent, hiss! She’s a serpent and her fangs are dripping and she needs something to bite on! Monaka wants the whole world to feel the venom! That’s only fair, right? Weaklings that can’t handle it deserve to die! If Monaka was a weakling, she would have died ages ago, because all that burning poison has been in her veins her whole life!

Onee-chan had a poison in her too. We both knew it when we met each other; we knew we were kindred spirits. She gave the poison a name, and she taught Monaka-chan how to spread it all over the world instead of just letting it leak wherever she went.

And just like Onee-chan, Monaka made fools out of everyone who had ever stopped up the poison or tried to beat it out of her.

Monaka-chan made fools out of everyone.

But Onee-chan made a fool out of Monaka.

She died… and all the poison that was left inside of her went to me.

Haha…! I can’t stand it…! It hurts too much! Spreading it hurts! Keeping it hurts! **Everything** hurts and this is what Onee-chan called despair, right?

Monaka loves it… Monaka _has_ to love it because otherwise, it’ll kill her.

Masaru-kun goes around hitting himself in the arms and Jatarou-kun smears blood everywhere and they feel _so_ sorry for themselves. _Poor_ Kotoko-chan! _Poor_ Nagisa-kun! Their parents were so, _so_ mean! Let’s all _cry_ about it, since that’s all we can do!

We all did the same thing, you know? We _all_ killed our parents. Monaka doesn’t understand why they don’t feel better now! They got rid of the things that hurt them. Monaka thinks they’re just hurting themselves now, since they don’t know what else to do.

It’s their own faults for letting that stuff ruin their lives! It’s their own faults they can’t look past it and see a new life in the distance! They’re not shackled by their own inherent wickedness! They could have tried to fix themselves because none of them were hopeless like me! The only people who are truly broken are the ones who were born that way.

Monaka-chan is bored of life as the serpent. She doesn’t want to be stuck in this role forever. So she’s building a brand new world where everyone carries some of the poison.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'll allow me just a moment of unprofessionalism, GOD, I love the Monokuma Kids. Jatarou has always been my favorite, ever since the designs first came out.
> 
> Was DR:AE gratuitously dark? Yes. Do I love and want to protect at least four if not all five of those children? YES.


End file.
